9486 in the collection  

Scholastic and the two-party system: Excluded Democracy

By Ralph Nader

Earlier this year, while speaking in Fargo,
North Dakota, Colleen Donley brought her nine
year old son, Adam, from Perham, Minnesota, to
the gathering to complain about the curriculum
materials on the presidential race produced by
Scholastic Magazine. Adam wanted to vote
for me but their mock paper ballots had only
two choices picturing John McCain and Barack
Obama.

A "meet the candidates" again pictured only the
Republican and Democratic candidates. Ms.
Donley noted that it would not have been
difficult to add the four other presidential
candidates who were on enough state ballots to
theoretically gain an Electoral College
majority. There was extra room on the page to
do so.

Pursuing her inquiry she noticed that only the
Democratic and Republican options were
available for research, games, posters and
issues. For example, the game "Be a Candidate"
had two party choices but only ?their? issues
and views.

Scholastic News Online did interview me
on educational issues on March 3, 2008. But the
students and their families in these public
schools obviously pay greater attention during
the autumn when mock elections and other
interactive modes are produced by Scholastic
Magazine to teach the children about
presidential politics?past and present.

Exclusion of third party and independent
candidates goes hand in hand with the failures
to educate the children about the pioneering
contributions of candidates and their parties
that challenged the two-party domination in
American history.

This continuing limitation of voter choice has
been entrenched in exclusionary ballot access
laws, a largely partisan judiciary, denial of
being on the national debate stage by a
corporation controlled by the two major parties
and other obstructions unknown in other
democracies.

Scholastic Magazine is published by a
private corporation. For many years its reach
into the public schools has been enormous: up
to 18 million children. Its "educational"
materials are colorful, easy to read and very
often uncritically adopted by teachers and
administrators.

Whether there are subjective political
motivations by the top executives is something
for further inquiry. Suffice it to say that
children should know how alternative
presidential candidates and their parties
pioneered the anti-slavery, women's right to
vote, worker and farmer justice movements in
the 19th century before either of the larger
parties ever did.

The children should learn the connection
between unobstructed candidates' rights to be
on ballot lines and voters' rights to have a
choice beyond one party gerrymandered districts
or only two parties offering candidates sharing
establishment political agendas.

Reducing the harbingers of advances in justice
in America such as social security, Medicare,
regulation of business abuses to minor
footnotes or designations called "the other" is
accepting the power structure's mauling of a
competitive democracy.

The public school teachers and parents should
have the intellectual curiosity and democratic
value systems of Ms. Donley and the outraged
parents who contacted her with similar
blackouts on their children's alternative
choices for president.

Year after year of these blackouts results in
millions of children growing up to passively
accept the two party "duopoly" and the
restriction of voter choice. That there is
another political world out there that they can
help cultivate is not at their level of
expectation. So nearly half of the voters stay
home and many citizens reluctantly vote for the
least-worst of the two big-party candidates.

Mock presidential elections, following
classroom study and discussion, occur in
October before the real voting in November.
Children do take their exciting experiences in
school home and spark conversations with their
parents. To indoctrinate them in the
inevitability of the two parties offering the
only winners and the only agendas and the only
debaters is to defeat the opportunities to
recognize and support other political
initiatives.

The very opportunity to build alternative
politics from election year to election year is
rooted significantly in such early age.

Shame on Scholastic Magazine,
Incorporated for restricting these visions and
understandings. Bravo to mothers like Colleen
Donley and youngsters like her son Adam who
strive to wake up the public school curriculum
choosers and the boards of education.


Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and
three-time presidential candidate.

— Ralph Nader
CounterPunch.org
2008-12-19


---

INDEX OF OUTRAGES

Pages: 380   
[1] 2 3 4 5 6  Next >>    Last >>